12. A Table Can Be Just as Creative as a Canvas with Kiki Canuto

love that so much it's so inspiring too and it's like i feel like exactly what we talk about with the show is just the power of community the power of creativity and it just shows up so clearly in what you do

yeah thanks definitely

well i know also you were talking here and i just know personally that you're a big traveler big explorer and how food can be for anybody, for me too, such a big part of those adventures.

And I'm curious what shaped your palette the most growing up? Was it when you traveled then? Was it family, culture? Like what's underneath the way you cook now?

That's such a great question.

I actually think it brings me back to home.

You know, growing up in my childhood home, my parents were always cooking for us.

I mean, I'm the baby of five.

So there wasn't a lot of going out to restaurants or traveling for us, unfortunately.

But fortunately enough, I did get to see how my grandparents and my parents cooked and built community in the home setting.

And the home is one of my favorite places as much as I love traveling.

I love being able to build a home and having people gather in my own space.

So it was a lot of me standing at my, you know, my mom or dad's feet, just kind of like watching them either grill or like saute up some veggies.

It was just always this like natural curiosity for me when it came to food and just wondering what they were doing.

From there, I just kind of kept going.

And I remember so vividly in middle school, I'd kind of pretend I was Rachel Ray in my own kitchen.

So I'd like have my own like little show.

I'd pretend there was like, you know, you know, like a group of people kind of sitting in front of me as I'm like talking to myself.

And I'm like, I am so crazy doing this, but it just came naturally to me to want to entertain and share things about food and what I had learned about it.

And I think just from there, it's kind of just the snowball effect.

Year after year, I've just kept adding more and more to my repertoire and just expanding on how I can interact with food rather than always just being the person in the back serving the food is just like, how can I be the host around it? How can I be a little bit more guest facing in it as much as I am doing the one cooking?

Oh my gosh, that's so special.

And I feel like that is such a unique lens of like you said, so often you think of the food and you don't always get to put like the person who's creating it, which is always like, no, I want to know who made this.

And it's such a great way to connect that.

I love it.